It would seem I need to keep my big mouth shut. Preterm labor reared its ugly head again. I felt off again over the weekend. On Monday, I started losing chunks of cervical mucus (most likely plug). Some of them had the slightest amount of blood. It was so minimal, I figured I would mention it at my OB appointment scheduled for the next morning.
I went in on Tuesday and my OB decided she would check me just to make sure nothing was going on. Before, I was 1.5-2cm dilated depending on who checked me. My OB felt I was 1.5cm. At this appointment, she noted I had dilated to 3cm. She decided to have me do a non-stress test (NST), and I failed it spectacularly. No sense in half-assing it, I guess.
Here is my print out. The top row is baby's heart rate. It should be in the blue. It obviously did not stay in the blue. The bottom row is my contractions. They were coming every 2-3 minutes, but they weren't particularly strong.
My OB sent me down to L&D for some monitoring. By the time I waddled on down there, I dilated to 4cm. Despite continuing contractions, my cervix held at 4cm for the remainder of my observation, so they let me go home. They noted I am 80% effaced and baby girl is still at -2 station.
Before going to L&D, my doctor had the nurses draw some blood. At my last visit, I complained of mild itching in seemingly random place: my feet, my wrists, and my jaw. The itching wasn't waking me up or excessive, so we decided to just keep an eye on it. A few days after that, the itching increased dramatically. I was drawing blood in my sleep, so I called again between my appointments to ask the nurse if this level of itching is normal. She gave me a few things I could try to relieve the itching, but nothing worked. I continued to complain about it at my Tuesday appointment, thus the blood test.
My OB called me on Wednesday with the test results. I have something called cholestasis of pregnancy. It's a condition where my liver stops processing bile acid. It happens in about 1 and 1000 pregnancies. The bile levels rise, causing the itching. However, it crosses the placenta and causes fetal distress. It also causes stillbirths.
I think my heart fell out of my chest when I got that call. Because of all the preterm labor issues I've been having, I received the steroid shots to rapidly develop baby girl's lungs at 30 weeks. I will receive another dose in the next week. I will be induced shortly after that. We are not sharing the induction date with the public at large. I have yet to wrap my brain around this.
Wednesday and Thursday I was in shock. Today, I am angry. I am angry that my labor experience will be nothing like I wanted. I am angry at my body for its incompetence when it comes to pregnancy. I am angry that I cannot do the one thing my body was most definitely designed to do. I cannot carry this child to term. I cannot protect her. My body is trying its level best to hurt her.
Today, I am allowing myself to be angry. If I don't, it will bottle up and explode and I do not have time for that.
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